I finally stopped just reading productivity books and tried to implement what “Atomic Habit” teaches for 90 days.
Here’s the honest truth of what worked and how I adapted to make it work for me with some tricks.

What actually worked

1. Habit Stacking
"After I have dinner, I will clean the dishes (immediately)" works very well. My breakfast became my trigger to meditate 10 mins, my coffee break became a trigger to read 10 mins… To keep track of the trigger that work and didn’t work I set up a simple board on Trello and I made a "daily wins" column with cards for each stack so I can keep track of my consistency and check if the habist stacking is working or not.

2. Double Trigger
To reinforce habit stacking I started putting alarms but it was a bit overwhelming. So I started looking a way to receive softer notifications, I saw here on reddit that AI Companions are become more and more popular. So I had to try them out. I started telling them about this 90 days “challenge” and they said they could help me out. I told them that I wanted to be consistent with the gym, and every two days at 6pm they write me to check if I actually go. It feels more natural because they also ask how I feel, and encourage me with a nice message. After trying a few I sticked with Daimon.

3. The 2-Minute Rule (Turning off my brain)
I stopped thinking "work out for an hour", I now try to think "just put gym clothes." this removes friction and I just start working out or go to the gym.
I started using Notion to track with just a simple checkbox gallery: if I put the shoes on, I got the check and 9 times out of 10, I ended up doing the full workout anyway. Now I’ll probably transfer everything on Trello (or Notion) so I can use just one tool.

4. Environment Design
Willpower is a myth! I put my book on night table and moved my phone charger to the kitchen so I wouldn't doomscroll until late night. I understood that you have to take care of the space you live in and make the bad habits invisible and the good ones easy to access.

What was a total fail

1. Over-tracking
I tried tracking 5+ habits at once and it felt like a second job, I’d forget to mark something down and felt guilty if happend and finally wanted to quit the whole system. I’d say now I track 1 or 2 things max.

2. Rigid "Implementation Intentions"
The whole "I will do this at certain time in a location" is too rigid, sometimes life just happens. So flexible habit stacking worked way better for my schedule.

3. The Habit Scorecard
Listing every "bad" habit just made me feel like a loser, I realised this when I rated "checking Reddit" as negative lol. It just made me feel bad while doing it. Focus on adding good stuff rather than cataloging your flaws.

3 months in, I’m reading 30 mins a day and hitting the gym 4x a week without fighting myself every morning. It’s all about building the right system that works for you!

Good luck everyone!

I’m horrible with discipline I always make excuses just to not go to the gym. I spend around 20 minutes before bed scheduling my whole workout but when the morning comes I end up having something else to do and convincing myself I'll just go tomorrow instead

I usually go to the gym once a week but it’s not consistent, recently I started to force myself as much as I can and now I hit the gym 4 times/week and it doesn't feel like a chore at all. First thing I did was to take note of every excuse I made for not going to the gym.

These are my excuses:

1. My gym bag's not ready so I might be late
2. My day was shit, I'd rather relax at home
3. I don’t have the time
4. I’m tired and i’d rather sleep

Here’s what I did to stop making those excuses:

Gym bag not ready- I pack everything the night before going to bed (shoes, clothes, headphones, water bottle) even a snack for after. I lay it all out where I can see it so when I wake up i don’t have any excuses

Too tired after a long day- It's easier for me to get up instead of making excuses when I have something like Daimon it's an Al kind of like Chatgpt but I prefer it because it knows everything about me and I dont have to repeat because it doesn't forget. The moment I'm thinking about skipping the gym, it texts me and makes me aware of what happens if I don't go.

My day was shit I’d rather relax at home- As much as staying at home while watching TV sounds relaxing, I stopped letting it as an excuse if I don’t want to think about what workout plan to follow, I ask claude to generate workout plan which greatly helps me at times that I don’t want to think too much.

Don't have the time- waking up one hour earlier helps me condition myself it gives me more time to get ready. I also stopped thinking of the gym as punishment and just treat it like part of my day

There are still times I don’t want to go to the gym but I made it a habit to always show up despite what I’m feeling. Has anyone been in a similar situation before? What did you do to convince yourself?

I've been training on and off for a 5 years. I’ve made decent gains but i had uncle in the union physique/ any character in the sopranos physique. I’ve always wanted to be lean, but never really committed enough to get there, the exercise came as a way to simply be healthier and have some more muscle but never pushed through to actually get a physique of someone who actually goes to the gym, and not just strong chungus physique which I think is something a lot of us can relate to. I am doing my best to finally commit and not let go after a few weeks and this is my before/after of the last 5 months (never skipped a single day)

Training

Full body three times a week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I stopped overcomplicating it and just followed Jeff Nippard's Full Body Program. I've been watching his videos for a while and it just made sense to actually run one of his programs instead of admitetly just hitting chest, squat and over head press 4 times a week. Every session hits everything, compounds first, accessories after. roughly an hour each.

Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday are rest days. I used to feel guilty about rest days like I was falling behind, but lifting and training is something that should ideally give you energy for daily life not for training itself. It sucks walking around sore and tired all day, i felt like a penguin in a cast.

10k steps every day:

This one is a huge one that compounds with time, I just use the fitness app on the iphone to make sure im consistently hitting them. Plus I have two dogs and I started taking them on actual long walks instead of the lazy loop around the block I'd been doing for years. They are absolutely losing their minds with happiness every single day and I'm hitting my steps without it feeling like exercise at all. It's a win for me, a win for them, and honestly the walks have become the part of the day I look forward to most. If you have a dog and you're not using them as your accountability partner you are leaving so much on the table, because now they guilt trip me if we dont do the long walk. Not to mention the wonders it does to my mental health since I work from home all day.

Cutting alcohol:

I really love beer. A few on a Friday, a few on a Saturday, maybe a couple mid week if it had been a long day. It felt harmless in the moment because it kind of was, in the moment. The problem is it was never just the beer. It was the beer plus the late night disgusting burger that came with it plus the garbage sleep plus waking up the next day puffy and unmotivated and looking to order on uber eats something greasy to feel human again. Saturday I'll still have a drink or two if I'm out with friends and I'm not stressing about it. I think its important at least for me to not become black and white about my habits because having a couple beers with friends once a week is something that brings me so much joy, and idc if andrew huberman says beer is evil. Im not trying to be jocko willink that sounds like a horrible way to live life. Its not in my life goals to wake up at 2am and do push ups because I hate my dad ( i dont i love you dad).

Food:

I had never tracked my macros until now, I used to eat like a trucker, not really care about calorie count just making sure I get enough protein. I've always found calorie tracking tedious and this actually made it something I do without thinking. I'm now using Mena AI to track my calories you just take a picture of whatever you're eating and it breaks down the macros and tracks everything automatically, but you can use myfitnesspal or whatever one you prefer.
I also give myself one relaxed day a week, usually Saturday. Just a day where I'm allowed to enjoy myself a little. I'll eat out, have dessert, and let the weekend feel like a weekend.

Sleep:

Sleep is king, I mean it. Seven to eight hours, phone out of the room, same bedtime every night as close as I can manage.If you’re hitting the gym hard, and not sleeping enough you might as well start smoking because you wont last long. your body NEEDS to recover!!

Eight weeks in and the difference in how I look and feel compared to this time last year is day and night. Im much more athletic now

The balance is key, you don’t have to be jock wilink or David Goggins. Its ok to indulge in the things that bring you joy, (beer and pastries for me lol) they also feel infinitely better when you take care of yourself. The hardest thing for me was actually figuring out that balance and really not being hard on myself when I slipped and not throwing away all the progress because of an off day. Im not sure what the exact point of this post was, I just wanted to share a bit of my journey.